📰 Liam Lawson qualifies 15th for Miami Grand Prix

By Alex Powell

Liam Lawson will start 15th in Formula One‘s Miami Grand Prix, after being eliminated in the second session of qualifying for the second consecutive day.

Entering qualifying after he was stripped of a seventh-placed finish in the sprint race, the Racing Bulls driver missed out on a place in the top-10 shootout for pole position.

That went to world champion Max Verstappen, who’ll start on pole for the third time this season. McLaren’s Lando Norris took second place, hours after winning the sprint.

Meanwhile, sprint pole-sitter Kimi Antonelli, of Mercedes, will start third, as world championship leader Oscar Piastri completed the second row.

Racing Bulls teammate Isack Hadjar also missed out on reaching Q3, setting the 11th-fastest time with a 1m 26.987s lap, 0.376s quicker than Lawson.

The Kiwi should take confidence from his performance in the sprint race though, after he made up five places on the first lap alone on a track that is notoriously difficult for overtaking.

After qualifying, Lawson was heard lamenting an issue with his car battery, which cost him power on his final timed lap and resulted in elimination.

“Mate, what is going on with this battery?” Lawson was heard asking his race engineer after qualifying.

“We do have a problem, clearly,” engineer Ernesto Desiderio replied. “That’s what we tried to manage the whole session, unfortunately. It seems like we didn’t get there.”

“We were dropping power through the run, I have no idea why,” said Lawson post-qualifying.

“It’s a shame, the car was really hooked up. We’re in a good window, it just sucks.

“Hopefully we can fix it for tomorrow, we need some rain – to be honest – would be nice.

“But let’s see.”

The battery issue is the second time Lawson has been troubled by car issues in qualifying. In Bahrain earlier this month, he was eliminated from the first qualifying session after a fault with his drag reduction system, which robbed him of vital milliseconds and saw him start 17th.

Having been made to wait as the last car to set a timed lap in the first qualifying session, Lawson got around the Miami International Autodrome in 1m 27.444s to set what was the sixth-fastest time.

Lawson wasn’t able to improve that time in the first session. His first mark saw him advance to the second session by 0.29s. Lawson’s Q1 time was 0.574s back from Verstappen, who topped the timings first up with a best lap of 1m 26.870.

In Q2, Lawson’s first timed lap of 1m 27.754s was over 1s off the pace, set early by Piastri, as well as being slower than the mark that saw him progress from Q1.

Lawson did better his time in Q2 and crossed the line with a best time of 1m 27.363s, only to be the last of the 15 cars remaining. That time saw him miss out on a place in the top 10 by 0.396s, which went to Haas’ Esteban Ocon.

Earlier, Lawson saw his seventh-placed finish – what should have been his best result in Formula One – stripped, after an incident at turn 12 on lap 15 of the sprint race caused Fernando Alonso of Aston Martin to crash and trigger a safety car.

Lawson had started 14th and made up five places on the opening lap alone, before an early pit stop saw him undercut the cars in front and cross the line eighth, before a penalty for Verstappen saw that result upgraded to seventh, before being redacted altogether.

The Miami Grand Prix begins at 8am on Monday (NZT).

Miami Grand Prix starting grid
Max Verstappen – Red Bull
Lando Norris – McLaren
Kimi Antonelli – Mercedes
Oscar Piastri – McLaren
George Russell – Mercedes
Carlos Sainz – Williams
Alex Albon – Williams
Charles Leclerc – Ferrari
Esteban Ocon – Haas
Yuki Tsunoda – Red Bull
Isack Hadjar – Racing Bulls
Lewis Hamilton – Ferrari
Gabriel Bortoleto – Sauber
Jack Doohan – Alpine
Liam Lawson – Racing Bulls
Nico Hulkenberg – Sauber
Fernando Alonso – Aston Martin
Pierre Gasly – Alpine
Lance Stroll – Aston Martin
Ollie Bearman – Haas

This article was first published on nzherald.co.nz and is republished here with permission.